DOJ Joins Suboxone Whistleblower Cases

The Justice Department filed notice that it plans to intervene in four False Claims Act lawsuits accusing Indivior and Reckitt of improperly marketing the opioid anti-addiction drug Suboxone.

In an Aug. 1 notice filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, DOJ intervened in one whistleblower suit and also requested that the complaint by former Reckitt sales representative Ann Marie Williams be unsealed.

Initially filed in 2013 and most recently amended in December 2016, the complaint claimed the companies falsely marketed Suboxone film as being less vulnerable to diversion and safer than Suboxone tablets. The complaint argued the product was in fact easier to divert and posed more of an accidental ingestion risk to children.